AN: Thank you for the lovely reviews! Every single one is so appreciated.

Chapter 10: A Hushed End

A blast, and then—

She fell to her knees in water, her hands over her ears, barely aware that someone was shaking her. "They're hungry," she muttered. "They're bigger now so they should be sated, but it's only made them hungrier, they ache with it, they want to eat us from the inside and they sing—"

"Come on, Errol, don't fall to pieces on me now," Dorian said, and his voice finally cut through the red haze. Her vision cleared and the voices fell away, and she was left only with the faint impression of hunger and Dorian's worried face in front of her.

"I'm fine," she said, accepting his hand as he helped her stand. "Just disoriented. What happened? Where are we?"

"It's not where, it's when," he said. "Alexius used the amulet to send us through time."

"Aw, fuck," Errol groaned. "Why do you sound happy about that?"

"Mainly because he intended to kill us and we're still alive, and also because it's fascinating. This kind of magic shouldn't even be possible, but here we are!"

"Okay crazy, so when are we?" she asked, holding her head. The red stones were growing out of every surface, and they pulsed with hunger. It was nauseating. "And how do we get out of here? I don't think I can take this much longer."

"What exactly are you feeling?" he asked, and she waved her hand vaguely.

"The stones. The red lyrium. It's like it's alive. I think it is. I can feel it. I just… we have to get out of here."

"Right," he said, clapping his hands, the glee of scientific discovery gone and the true horror of their situation settling in. "I have no idea when we are, though I think we're still in the castle somewhere. Our best bet is to start moving."

Errol released the staff from her back, taking comfort in the familiar wood under her fingers. She had named it Jules. "All right, let's go."

It was a hard slog through knee high, stinking sewer water. Finally they stumbled upon Fiona, pinned to the wall in a cell, red lyrium growing out of her like a cancer. She confirmed their fears: They had been gone a full year.

"You must beware," Fiona gasped, her voice labored and clogged with stone. "Alexius serves… the Elder One. More powerful than the Maker. No one challenges him and lives."

"Yeah, well, before me no one had ever crossed over from another reality," Errol said grimly. "Weird shit happens all the time."

"Our only hope is to find the amulet that Alexius used to send us here," Dorian said, all of the humor gone from his voice. He was sweating slightly, his hair mussed, and the panic was starting to show, his pupils narrowed down to pinpricks. "If it still exists, I can use it reopen the rift at the exact spot we left. Maybe."

"Good," Fiona breathed, a look of relief on her red-tinged face.

"I said maybe," Dorian snapped. "It might also turn us into paste."

"You must try," Fiona wheezed. "Your spymaster, Leliana. She is here. Find her. Quickly, before the Elder One learns you're here."

Dorian nodded and turned away, but Errol hesitated. She gripped the rusted bars of the cell and heated them until they shattered, then approached what was left of Fiona's body. "Can I… do anything for you?"

"Besides survive?" Fiona said weakly. "Yes, I know what you're thinking. Please, do it. It would be a mercy. As a fellow mage, as the Herald… it would be an honor."

Errol blinked back tears. She thought about how far she had come, the girl from Seattle who fell from the sky and thought that magic was so great. She rested her hand on Fiona's cheek.

"I won't let this world happen," she whispered fiercely. "I promise you."

She reached out with her magic and focused on the nerve endings, severing them first so Fiona wouldn't feel anything. Then she burned her, from the inside out, until all that was left was a lump of red lyrium on the wall, screaming out its rage as its food was torn from it.

"She's at peace, now," Dorian said as Errol emerged from the cell, but she just pushed past him, her jaw set.

"We're finding Alexius and we're getting the fuck out of here. And then I'm going to kill him."

They found Cassandra a few dungeons over. She was blessedly whole, but wreathed in red, her pupils glowing scarlet, and her voice echoed over itself, overlaid with something alien. She believed them sent from Andraste back from the dead. They hurried to explain and unlock the door and then Errol couldn't help herself.

The moment the door swung open she flung herself on the still-sitting Cassandra and wrapped her in a hug.

"I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry," she whispered into what was left of Cassandra's rotting clothing. "I won't let this world happen, I promise, I'll go back and change everything."

Cassandra awkwardly patted her on the back. "Well, it is you," she said. "If I had any doubts, they are banished now." She pulled away and allowed Errol to help her stand. "You must stop this. After you died, we couldn't stop the Elder One from rising. Empress Celene was murdered. The army that swept in afterwards - it was a horde of demons. Nothing stopped them. Nothing. You must go back." She gripped Errol's arm, and the desperation in her voice was nothing that Errol had ever expected to hear from Cassandra. "Errol, you must stop this."

"I will," she said, and Cassandra's hand dropped. She nodded.

"Even if we fail, we must try. I believe Solas is still here as well, and Leliana. We have to find them if we are to have a chance."

Errol's throat felt tight. She hadn't considered seeing Solas in this condition. What if he was like Fiona? What if she had to—

She banished that thought. "Where would they be?"

At first, Solas didn't know that they were there. His back was turned, and Errol had a moment to gather herself.

He wasn't like Fiona, thank God. He was more like Cassandra, surrounded by a living red cloud, but his back was still straight. That made her smile grimly. He was unbroken. Of course he was. How could she have doubted?

Then he turned, and the look on his face when he saw her almost brought her to tears, but she made a fist and dug her nails into it so hard it left bloodstained crescent-moons in her palm.

There was shock, and awe, and relief, and joy, and vindication, and a certain contentment. "You're alive," he breathed, never taking his reddened eyes from her face. "We saw you die, but I knew it couldn't be so."

"The spell Alexius cast displaced us in time," Dorian explained again as he opened the cell door. "We just got here, so to speak."

Solas stepped out, still looking at her, and that same compulsion rose up again. Normally she never would, but here in a broken future, among the hungry stones she ran and threw her arms around him. Unlike Cassandra he returned her embrace fully, pressing his face to her hair, if only for an instant.

"I knew," he said again, softly. "I knew you would return, somehow."

He pulled away and looked at Dorian. "Can you reverse the process? You could return to your time and obviate the events of the last year. It's not too late." He said the final words with a certainty Errol wasn't sure she felt.

"If I can get my hands on Alexius' amulet, then we might have a chance," Dorian said. "But we can't stand around giving each other hugs all day."

"My life is yours," Solas said immediately. "This world is an abomination. It must never come to pass."

"Then we need to find Leliana," Cassandra said. "Quickly. And then—"

"And then Alexius pays for his crimes," Errol said, and wondered if this was what it was to truly hate someone, a searing burn down to her bones, a desire to kill like nothing she'd ever felt before, and the knowledge that she'd take pleasure in it.

They found Leliana a husk of herself but still alive and able. She had been infected with the blight again and again, pieces of her cut off and used for study, and during the year of torture she'd also been infected by the same hatred that now ate away at Errol's insides. She led them to a storage room stashed with stolen weapons and armor, and soon they were ready to make their final stand.

They were mere steps from Alexius' throne room when Solas put a hand on Errol's arm. "Wait, just a moment."

Leliana swung on him. "Why would we wait, when we are so close?" she hissed. "The Elder One is coming. We must make our move now!"

"I need but one moment with the Herald," Solas said evenly in his strange, multi-layered voice.

"You—"

"We have waited one year, Leliana. One minute more will not be the end of us. I assure you I would not take the risk if it was not important."

He pulled Errol away before anyone could say anything else. They moved only a few steps, but then he concentrated and a soundproof barrier emerged around them.

"Listen to me, this is very important and there isn't much time," he said, his voice low and urgent. "Do you trust me?"

"What?"

"Errol, do you trust me. You must answer honestly."

She looked at him, so thin and wasted after a year of waiting for her to return, wreathed in red. "I… yes. Of course."

He closed his eyes and exhaled in relief, then opened them again. "Good. I have a request to make of you. When you return to your time, you must find my past self and tell him something."

"Tell him what?"

"Just this one word," he said, then said something beautiful that she didn't understand.

She furrowed her brow. "What is that, elven? What does it mean?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you that right now. You have to trust me. The whole world might depend on it. I need to know that you will do this."

Errol was starting to remember why she didn't always trust him. "Why can't you just tell me what it means?"

He sighed, looking hunted, like a man who had been through hell and back. "I have my reasons. I knew you would return. I have spent the past year in this blighted world, slowly going mad from the red lyrium, thinking, thinking how I could possibly stop all of this from happening, thinking how I could make sure that no matter what, the world would emerge from this as I dreamed it would, better, brighter. This is the way. Please, Errol, you must promise me you will deliver this message. Promise me."

She looked into his pained, hopeful face, and slowly nodded. "Okay, I promise."

He gripped her hand briefly, covertly, then dropped it. "Then it doesn't matter if I die here. Now, say it back to me, slowly. I want to make sure you pronounce it correctly." She said the word, and he shook his head. "It's an el at the end, not an er. Say it again." She tried again, and he nodded, satisfied. "You will remember it? Promise me again."

She had never heard him sound so desperate about anything. "I promise."

He smiled at her, a shadow of his usual proud smile. "Thank you, Errol Kerr. You will be great. I wish I could see it. Now we must see you safely returned, or this will all be for naught."

"Errol!"

He caught her just as she was leaving the war room, via the Chantry's back entrance, after another lengthy argument over the new mage alliance. How did he know I'd come out this way?

She turned with a fake expression of mild surprise on her face. "Oh, Solas, hi!"

He gave her a look that said he saw right through her. "You've been avoiding me ever since Redcliffe. It's been a week since we returned to Haven and you still haven't come to me here or in the Fade. I would like to know why."

"I… haven't been avoiding you."

"Then, walk with me?" he said, holding his arm out in a you first gesture.

They walked the path that circled Haven. It reminded her of the time that she walked that way with Leliana, and hoped that this walk would be less confrontational.

"Does this have to do with the future or—"

"The future!" she said, then silently cursed herself that he was able to get it out of her so quickly. She was not ready to talk about the kiss right now.

He smiled a little. "A straight answer. Good, we're getting somewhere." She was silent. He continued, in a gentle voice. "I know that what you saw was horrific—"

"You have no idea," she said flatly.

"So tell me."

"The world was destroyed. Red lyrium was everywhere." She stopped and turned, meeting his eyes for the first time in a long time. "Solas, I could feel it," she said. "Its hunger, its cravings. That's not normal, right? People hear its song, but this was different. This was something else. It's alive, and it eats people."

He looked troubled, but only said: "And?"

She turned away again. He turned her face back, his fingers light but insistent. "And?"

"I saw your body thrown on the floor like a rag doll," she said, and hated that tears were rising to her eyes. She blinked them back fiercely. "Your neck was snapped. You were already so thin but you weren't broken, they couldn't break you, but they… they killed you, right in front of me, your body was at my feet—"

She stopped abruptly and pulled away, clenching her hands into fists. Gently he took her right hand and turned it palm up, revealing the crescent moon scars.

"If you keep using this method to keep from crying, you could end up with an infection," he said softly. Then: "Why didn't you tell me this before?"

"I had questions. I had to… sort some things out."

"Such as?"

She didn't answer, but a moment later she felt his hand on her shoulder. How does he always know? "Errol, was there anything else?"

"No," she said, but a second later: "Yes. Maybe."

"Which is it?"

"He asked me if I trusted you."

She finally faced him again and he looked genuinely taken aback. "And what did you say?" he asked, a touch warily.

She surveyed his face, tracking the emotions there. "I said that I do."

He looked imperceptibly relieved, something she would have missed if she hadn't been watching him so closely. "I'm glad to hear it."

"Should I?"

His eyes narrowed a little, and now he was the one watching her, scanning her face for any lies or inconsistencies. "What else did he say to you?"

Errol held his gaze. Part of her didn't want to tell him. She knew he was older than he seemed, knew more than he let on, was more than he appeared. She knew she shouldn't trust him, like there was a small voice in the back of her head waving red flags.

But she did. Somehow, inexplicably, she did. She thought of him wasted and red-eyed in the future. She thought of him kissing her in the Fade. She thought of him holding her after she first killed someone. She thought of him dead at her feet.

"He told me to tell you a word. An old elven word that I can't understand and that no one seems to be able to translate."

A look of understanding crossed his face. "You've been avoiding me because you were trying to translate the word first." He smiled, just a little. "You cannot bear to lie to me to such a degree, even a lie by omission, that you must completely avoid me?" He didn't say that's adorable - he wouldn't say something like that - but she felt it unsaid in his body language.

"There was also the whole 'I'm still processing you dying in front of me' thing," she reminded him, and his smile faded.

"Of course. The trauma of seeing your allies die is — it helps me understand what you did to Alexius."

"Do you judge me for it?" she asked sharply.

"His son was in the room. He was on his knees," Solas said, and her stomach clenched, but he continued. "But no. Perhaps I mourn the innocence you lost, but I do not judge. In fact, I would have done the same, had I seen your body before me."

"I hope so," she said, and turned as if to walk away. He caught her wrist.

"The word, Errol."

She held it on the tip of her tongue. It felt important. Huge. Bigger than her. Bigger than all of them.

"Errol, do you trust me? What is the word?"

She looked back at him, his hand still on her wrist, and whispered it. The moment the word left her lips she wanted to grab at it, pull it back, but it was too late. He looked shocked, then satisfied.

"It is as I theorized. Good."

"What does it mean?" she asked, one last time, even though she knew what he would say.

"I can't tell you yet."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." She made to walk away but realized he was still holding her wrist. She looked at him, eyebrow raised.

"We'll resume lessons in the Fade tonight," he said. It wasn't a question. "It would be beneficial to work on controlling your emotions."

After everything that had happened, Errol couldn't help but agree with him. She felt like she was losing more and more of herself every day. "All right, Jedi master," she said wearily. "See you tonight."

He released her wrist, and she started to walk away, but paused and looked back.

"I'd kill him again," she said, some part of her pleased that she could bring a look of shock to his face. "If it meant saving you. All of you. Maybe I don't belong in my world anymore. I wouldn't kill for that one. I will for this one. A thousand times over. What does that make me? Murderer or Herald? Where do I belong?"

He merely stared at her. She shrugged and kept walking. "I don't know either."